Journalism Of Chicanery

Author of The Land of the Wilted Rose, of the The White Mahatma Quartet, Anand Ranganathan studied Chemistry at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and went on to pursue a doctorate from Cambridge. A man of varied interests, he is researching dengue and tuberculosis at the International Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology at Delhi. Also, for the record, he's Contributing Editor with Newslaundry. We told you, varied interests!

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To walk the talk requires courage, and courage, unlike spectrum, is precious. It is never in free supply. Greed, on the other hand, is.

The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, Indian Express, and many more – all claim to be the torch-bearers of morality. Indeed, with their history as rich and long – sometimes longer – than the history of independent India, they’ve contributed significantly to the independence movement itself. At times, even fought fiercely to keep our nation free and democratic. Sadly, though, all that is history.

A newspaper is an institution. It works on a reader’s trust, claiming to stand alongside him and fight the “system” he’s burdened with and crushed under. By definition, this solicits a fair degree of anti-establishment from it – how can a pro-system, pro-misrule, pro-neta newspaper ever gain trust in a country that’s been robbed and pillaged silly by the elected few? Of course it can’t, and so, to avoid being seen as little more than a mouthpiece, the newspaper stands up for the common man, the suppressed man, the utterly vanquished man.

Which is why it is painful in the extreme to see these newspapers full of government-sponsored ads which praise the living and worship the dead. To see them shamelessly earn a packet through what is clearly a criminal act on the part of governments that are elected by us, elected so they may spend judiciously our head-earned money.

The time has come to demand a stop to this immoral, disgraceful act that our newspapers are glibly party to, perhaps complicit in.

It is beyond hope to trust our politicians to stop this practice. To prevent a megalomaniac from self-gloating, to ask a sycophant not to indulge in sycophancy, is, to my mind, spitting in the wind. Save that dribble where there’s still some hope, where it can splatter a sleepy conscience, awaken it yet. Jago re!

Dear Sir,

Would you promise to donate 50% of the revenue your newspaper earns through government ads that glorify non-existent policies and birth & death anniversaries of our leaders, to either the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund or to an NGO/Government scheme meant for the needy and the poor of our country. The money the government pays you for the ads is our money, and it is time we had a say in where and how it is spent.

I very much look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Anand Ranganathan

Three weeks have passed, but I am still to hear from the newspapers that had been mailed versions of the above letter. In those three weeks – as my number-crunching will illustrate – these newspapers have made a cool Rs 24 crore off the UPA-II government.

Which newspaper in its right mind, then, would care to reply? A newspaper that espouses journalism of courage, perhaps? Wrong.

It was New Year’s Eve – the mailbox was still empty – and I had time at hand. I googled “central government advertisements” and arrived at what can only be described as the mother of all unauctioned coal mines. Allow me to explain.

Directorate of Advertising & Visual Publicity or DAVP (http://davp.nic.in/) is a quarry so vast and labyrinthine, so riddled with blind alleys and escape hatches, that I feel something of the following conversation occurs daily at the DAVP Bhavan.

“Yes…? Come in?”

“Er, good evening, sir.”

“Ah, Luthra – done with the figures?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve uploaded all 3,765,423 of them. Should I also go ahead and make sense of them – I mean, make bar-diagrams and pie-charts and stuff?”

“Tell me, Luthra…are you paid to do extra work of your own accord?”

“No, sir, not that I know of.”

“Then?”

“Sorry, sir, I-”

“Leave all the interpreting to the muppet who stumbles by our site accidentally. Let him wade though the numbers shit, you get me?”

“I do, sir, I do!”

“All Central Govt. Ministries/Departments/Attached & Subordinate Offices/Field Offices shall route their advertisements, including display advertisements, through DAVP,” is the terse commandment that welcomes you at the shaft. Enter, and you are submerged under a coal-pile of every number, every small-change, and every cheque that was ever issued by DAVP to print media over the past ten years. It is mind-boggling, the extent to which the DAVP-ians have taken the “electronic input” to heart.

A little further down the dark and foreboding numbers-cave and you’re confronted by the resident DAVP guide, who says, very matter-of-factly: “DAVP has been working as a catalyst of social change and economic growth over the years. It has been instrumental in creating awareness amongst masses on socio-economic themes, seeking their participation in developmental activities and for eradication of poverty and social evils.”

If only they hadn’t brought in the “eradication of poverty and social evils” bit, and I would’ve left them alone. A government agency talking of eradicating poverty? I smelled a rat right there! I was not to be disappointed.

A week of number-crunching and the veil started to lift slowly.

There’s a drop-down menu that lists the money UPA-II has spent on drenching our newspapers with birth and death anniversary ads for our dear & departed leaders (15 are listed). Figure 1 shows just a glimpse of the “leader preferences”.

Figure 1. UPA-II expenditure in crores (Left panel) on newspaper ads relating to birth and death anniversaries of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and Vivekananda. Right panel: Total money spent on these four leaders, 2008-2011, in crores.

The money that’s been wasted, or the obvious dynastic tilt it’s been wasted on, is not what’s frightening. What’s frightening is that Rs 20 crore is just the central government expenditure on Rajiv Gandhi. That there are 28 state governments itching to emulate the big brother at the centre is what’s frightening. Multiply Rs 20 crore over four years by a conservative 20 and you get closer to the figure that’s been dished out in his memory. Yes – that’s Rs 400 crore for one man! Our money. And who’s benefitted? Not the poor and the needy. What’s been eradicated? Not poverty and social evil.

Crazy numbers are not the only thing the DAVP exhibits proudly. Also in the cache are pdf reams of “noted” and “jotted” letters, drafts, and annual reports. Skimming through one, I learn finally the identity of the Corleone pulling the DAVP strings. It’s the Newspaper Industry.

rate of Rs. 114.31 per column centimeter…The Government in 2008 acceded to the demand of newspapers for escalation and enhanced existing advertisement rates by 24%…The newspaper advertisement volumes increased from 238 million column centimeter of ad space in 2010 to 280 million column centimeter in 2011…A Questionnaire was circulated in March 2009 to 4,605 newspapers/periodicals seeking data on their income and Expenditure…There was, however, a very poor response. Replies were received from 49 newspapers/periodicals only.

The publishers of newspapers and periodicals have been repeatedly insisting that due to recession and increase in newsprint cost, their profitability has been severely affected. Therefore they have been arguing that the DAVP rates should be substantially hiked to help them improve their profitability.

Indian Newspaper Society (INS) gave a presentation in October, 2009 suggesting an increase of 250%. As of today the rate is 159.32 per column centimeter.

Exactly how much a newspaper earns from government advertising is never revealed by the newspaper. Indeed, it may even be a closely guarded secret. One can only infer – once one has collated the skull-crushing data into graphs and pie-charts, that is – and that too only for the UPA-II spend (courtesy DAVP website). Multiply it by at least 20 or 30 again to get to the real All India yearly figure. As Figure 2 shows, Indian Express hasn’t earned much from UPA-II compared to The Times of India or the Hindustan Times. But patience – therein hangs a tale!

Figure 2. Central government committed expenditure in crores (Left panel) on newspaper ads published in The Times of India (ToI), Hindustan Times (HT), and Indian Express (IE), all city editions. Right panel: Cumulative committed expenditure for the years 2004-2011 in crores.

As any advertising person will tell you, what matters to the company selling a product is the circulation numbers for a newspaper (or the TRP numbers for a channel). The more people watch a particular show or read a particular newspaper, the more advertisements it attracts. Simple logic, you’d say. Well, the Indian Express defies it spectacularly!

Figure 3 shows the circulation figures for Indian Express, The Times of India, and the Hindustan Times over an 8-year period. Predictably, The Times of India is the clear leader, with Indian Express trailing a fair distance behind – as of 2012 it wasn’t even in the top 30 Indian newspapers.

Nothing startling thus far, you’d conclude. But chart the ad revenue of these newspapers as a ratio of their circulation (Figure 4) and the smog clears. Startlingly.

Indian Express, that had been trailing a poor third all this while (with a circulation figure 20 times less than ToI), manages to trump even the mighty Times of India! Circulation numbers be damned. Indeed, even HT spoils the ToI show. I wonder if Mr Jain has thought of commissioning PWC to crunch these numbers – a few dozen law suits might start to roll Mr Manish Tewari’s way.

Figure 4. Money earned by Indian Express, The Times of India, and the Hindustan Times from UPA-II, as a ratio of circulation. Indian Express, despite having a circulation figure 20 times less than The Times of India, has earned the highest. Right panel: Cumulative earnings in crores for the three newspapers for the period 2004-2011. Note the change wrt Indian Express from Figure 3, right panel.

Grave dangers lurk behind this seemingly harmless strategy of governments to dish out our money to newspapers. For one, it is completely unethical – leave aside the birth/death commemorations, even the NREGA and Sadak Yojna ads are deceitful, accompanied as they always are by three or four “Hon’ble” mug-shots.

Second, it threatens to erode the very edifice on which the worthiness of any newspaper stands: scrupulous objectivity with a pinch of anti-establishment. More and more government dole-outs can only take a newspaper in one direction, that of a mouthpiece. For their own good, the newspapers that are flirting with this danger might want to revisit their glorious history.

Finally, what of the government and its promise to eradicate poverty and social evil? Figure 5 shows just how serious it is in this endeavour. The DAVP committed expenditure on newspaper ads for the year 2012 is a staggering Rs 419 crore! In fact, for the past eight years, the expenditure has been consistently more than the budget allocated to the Ministry of Law & Justice and the Ministry of Public Grievances. Take that! Lucky for the government that people in this country never demand justice and so never hold any grievances.

Figure 5. Central government committed expenditure on newspaper ads, and budget plan outlay (actuals/revised estimates) for Ministry of Law & Justice, and Ministry of Public Grievances, year on year. The figures for the two ministries for the year 2011 were not available; for newspaper ads the Central Government 2011 committed expenditure was Rs 419 crore. Source: DAVP and http://indiabudget.nic.in/index.asp.

Just so it didn’t feel left out I visited the Ministry of Law & Justice website, too. That ‘”social evil” gem wasn’t there but I found this instead:

“Facilitating administration of Justice that ensures easy access and timely delivery of Justice to all.”

Why has our Supreme Court – a body that once roared: “What the hell’s going on?!” – why has the keeper of our nation’s conscience not taken the government to task over the Rs 419 crore figure? How can justice be delivered “timely” when all that money is going into subsidising editors’ salaries and their foreign jamborees?

I ask this of Justice Katju, the present Chairman of the Press Council of India, having mailed him all the data and figures. I also ask him whether I can, as a common citizen, submit a petition to him, the PCI head, so he can then act on the matter, just like courts need a PIL submission in order to proceed further.

Brilliant work. Just what we expect from NL. To other NL contributors and Indian mainstream media journalists: See this and learn!

guest

Fabulous and a very frightening article. Not only does it prove the cartelisation between the pillars of democracy , but sheds light on the reason behind the Army unit moving towards deli story. Also it shows how taxpayers are paying for Mr Gupta’s walks and Mr Sharma’s obnoxious smirks . Something seriously is wrong in our country now because honesty and common decency are virtues but not necessities . May be I am overreacting but it seems a more calculated, intense and subtle form of emergency where truth is the first victim and institutions crumble

desi boyz

enlightening sirjee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i have become fan of few insightful and fair columnists of NL who are unscathed so far in era of ‘opinion-making-entrepreneurship’………and definately mr rangnathan is one among them…

desi boyz

i think NL has potential to be an avenue of objective and politically incorrect but fair journalism……….however, we haven’t seen any piece on ‘HINDU TERROR’ polemic…….what’s your stand?????
madhu ma’am must give it a serious consideration…..

A very brilliant piece! The missing links that make up the media crooks/paid media is clearly exposed! Strange the Communists have no complaint about this money down the drain! @bharatjohnson

Harish Maru

Possible to do comparative with US and UK govt. policies re. govt. ads?

http://twitter.com/pr0xy28 pr0xy28

I would kill to see a newspaper smiling faces of

http://twitter.com/kunal_goutam Kunal Goutam

simply brilliant!!

NK

Dude, that is a Tendulkarish straight drive. No fielder moved!

kalps1616

Hats off for a superb research and painstaking efforts!!! The whole article showcases the meticulous attention paid to details and the reader friendly way it’s been presented. Not to forget the noble intention of the journalist which leaps to the eye of every reader, a lon forgotten trait by 99% journos in MSM. Its’s heartening to realise that SM journalists like you, Ravinar of mediacrooks are keeping the standards of Indian journalism.

Rachana

Brilliant!

Shashank Tripathi

Now that how a scientist would study a problem… excellent work Anand Sir…. one of your students from ICGEB

Vinod

Thank you. If there were any who didn’t know the extent to which the press and the govt employees have been co-opted by the UPA, this should make things clear.

So, if Chautala and *all* the others get 10 years for their crooked acts, what is this worth?

PrasadRao

Just noting use of funds does not prove misuse of funds, Anand.
– Does the op-ed slant of any of these newspapers track governement ad spend ?
– Does the money result in promotion of any particular politician ?

This post goes to a lot of trouble to allege corruption by proving spend without ever correlating the two. Some examples of how this could have been done

Corporate advertising can lead to media biashttp://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/AMA%20Publications/AMA%20Journals/Journal%20of%20Marketing%20Research/TOCs/SUM_2012.1/impact_advertising_media_bias.aspx
“The study identifies two strategic effects that arise due to advertising. The first, “readership effect,” refers to media’s incentive to increase readership. When a newspaper delivers a larger readership to advertisers, it can command a higher advertising fee. Therefore, each newspaper has an incentive to reduce its bias to improve its appeal to moderates and increase its readership. The second, “incremental pricing effect,” refers to newspaper’s incentive to alleviate competition
for advertisers. When advertising supplements subscription fees as a source of revenue, a newspaper’s choice of bias has an effect on the intensity of price competition in the advertising market. Therefore, each newspaper has an extra incentive to polarize in order to alleviate competition for advertisers.”

Government advertising is like all other government spending – prone to corruption.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship_scandal
“The sponsorship scandal came about as a result of a Canadian federal government “sponsorship program” in the province of Quebec and involving the Liberal Party of Canada, which was in power from 1993 to 2006. The program was originally established as an effort to raise awareness of the Government of Canada’s contributions to Quebec industries and other activities in order to counter the actions of the Parti Québécois government of the province that worked to promote Quebec independence. The program ran from 1996 until 2004, when broad corruption was discovered in its operations and the program was discontinued. Illicit and even illegal activities within the administration of the program were revealed, involving misuse and misdirection of public funds intended for government advertising in Quebec.”

AK Chatterjee

Painstaking research – especially in light of how “transparent” govt. depts. actually are – and incisive analysis. Kudos to Anand Ranganathan for bringing out, through evidence based research, the cosy relationship between the state and the 4th estate.

Ranjit K Mohanty

Brilliant is the word.

Prateek

The article which should be read by every newspaper reader especially TOI and HT.
Will only like to ask one think, why was Hindu omitted from the findings?

SuchindranathAiyer

Very well constructed piece of work. “The question is”, Said Alice, “Whether you can make words mean so many things”? “The question is”, Said the Walrus, “Who is to be master, that is all” … Its a Snark, itsa Snark, its a Snark, The Bellman cried, said three times is true”.

Sumedha

Bravo!! This was an analysis urgently needed. Do keep us posted on the progress with the PIL.

Ravi

Below is a news report from RTN. ASSOCHAM issued a half page advt echoing the very sentiments given below. How should we react to this?

I am not in anyway supporting UPA or the newspapers. But just that it is a rather difficult decision to make as a businessman even if he is a news paper owner apparently the fourth pillar.

As the fight over CAG’s report on coal allocation intensifies, one of the prominent industry associations, has justified the government’s decision to allot coal blocks at cheap rates to big corporations.

Assocham, some of whose members may be among the beneficiaries of the government policy, said the allocation of cheap coal helped keep input prices down for the corporations who got them. In turn, it argued, these corporations could produce power at cheap rates and win price-based bidding wars to supply power to government-owned companies.

The CAG, in its report a week ago, had pointed out that most of these coal allocations have not even been put to use, but are being “squatted on” by their allottee companies such as steel and power producers. Sajjan Jindal, vice-chairman of JSW Steel is the former president of Assocham, while the current president is Rajkumar Dhoot, MD of Videocon Industries.

“The ASSOCHAM agrees that there could have been serious wrongs in the selection of beneficiaries. The issue has to be tackled differently and the CBI is probing the case,” the association said. It, however, maintained that cheap coal helps keep power prices down. A similar argument was advanced by former telecom minister A Raja, who said that cheap spectrum helped telecom companies keep call rates down.

“Several of the blocks were allocated to power, steel and cement companies for captive use. If the blocks were auctioned, the cost of these blocks would have pushed up the sale price of power, steel and cement,” the association said.

“To extrapolate the current price to the prospective coal output from these blocks and then arriving at a figure of over Rs 1.87 lakh crore as the loss to the Government, does not seem to be correct application of accepted principles of economic value assessment,” it alleged.

Assocham also questioned whether auctioning is the best way of allocating resources to private companies. “The case in point is the spectrum auctions. The inability of the successful bidders to push the 3G service to a large base of subscribers partly due to the high costs imposed by the bid price, puts a question mark on the claimed advantages of the auction process. This has also exposed the telecom sector to a huge debt that continues to constrain its expansion,” it said.

“If Government is to be mandated on what public policies should be by the judiciary or the chief auditor or some civil groups, only chaos would follow,” the industry group said.

Shovon Chowdhury

Well done!

koorkhen

Over the last few weeks I can see that you have mustered real courage to throw light on critical areas. I hope you are adequately protected and you continue that work. Another likelihood is that you may command a good price for yourself from the booty of 400+ crores before you potentially expose 10’s of 1000 crores. The million dollar question continues to be whether these details are making us more action oriented or cynical ? As of now it is cynical as you can also see from the media coverage .. but in time if concrete action can be produced , contributions from writers like Anant are well done.

http://twitter.com/madhusudan41 Madhusudan Thakkar

Wah Wah……What a piece…..This is what I call “Saab Ki Dhulai”….This is “Journalism of Courage” & “Flame of Hope”…”Let Truth Prevail” …This is indeed “Tehekla”

Kushan

Not just an enlightening, well scripted and concrete write-up, also every phrase, every para was crying out loud with suffocation the govt has been giving us. Can easily understand the painstaking and research done for this work. We want our journalist to learn a bit from this masterpiece and introspect !!

rm

Deep digging! reminds me of conviction of Al-Capone on mail fraud!!
I guess citizen forums should demand that Govt should not spend any money on ads on birth anniversary, death aniversary or dubious achievements of the incumbent ruling party.

Shikha

In the beginning you mentioned The Hindu as well but in your analysis you didn’t talk about it. I am a Hindu reader and I am seeing this paper being flooded with such ads. What have been your findings about The Hindu?

http://twitter.com/adityapranav Aditya Pranav

Simply brilliant!! A terrific story and a stunner. The kind of journalism that attracts admiration.

Skeptic

Should the government not curtail this expenditure to reduce the fiscal deficit? All those editors supporting the UPA2 on raising prices of diesel, cooking gas, railway tickets,etc. in the name of fiscal prudence should forgo these ‘subsidies’ to the newspapers.

Mango Man of Banana Republic

Social media was long calling them #paidmedia. That was mainly based on a gut feeling, that something is not quite right. But this article gives facts and figures – especially the figures. And what damning figures they are, too.

Satyam Ravi Dwivedi

Brilliant! just brilliant! It was more like reading a scientific paper, no wonder such a well presented article is coming from a scientist. You Sir, should write on!

Anoop

One of the best articles I have read in recent times great job Mr.Ranganathan and the NL team

Kailas

Brilliant Analysis!

BATMAN

SALUTE NL AND YOU RAGA SIR just 1 Q, any idea how much BJP already spent on their adds?